My mom and I were getting on the highway this past Sunday when I eyed this Dodge Rampage chugging along in the slow lane. Its driver was probably doing about fifty, causing everyone ahead of us to slam on their brakes as they merged in behind him. My mom pulled around, and flexing her engine’s 302 horsepower, seamlessly glided past, leaving me just enough time to snap a few shots.

For an early-’80s Mopar, this Rampage was surprisingly clean, with little noticeable rust. Aside from the black primer-colored front clip and hood, the white paint appeared original to me. The burgundy interior reinforced this belief. As for those alloy wheels, they were not standard fare for an L-body. I believe they’re from a late-’90s Dodge Neon ACR. This wheel design was also used in a larger size on the 1998-2000 Caravan ES. I wish this car was parked so I could’ve taken some better pictures, but two highway shots will have to do for a car this scarce.

34 Comments

I still harbor just a little inner Jones for one of these. I liked them when they came out, and I like them now. A somewhat smaller El Camino. The body shape was nicely done so as to make these quite good looking, especially by early 1980s standards.

Cute truck,I thought this looked familiar,big brother’s holiday snaps caught it’s Plymouth Scamp relative in the car park at a classic bike show with a basket case Maico motocrosser in the pick up bed.CC effect sort of strikes again

Scamps are a rare sight. They were only built for one model year (1983), and have to have been produced in much smaller numbers than the Rampage, which wasn’t exactly a huge seller itself. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Scamp. I’m not sure I actually knew they existed back when they were being built, despite having a boyhood interest in cars at the time (I would have been 11-12 years old during the 1983 model year). Although if I’ve seen a Scamp more recently, I guess I may have not realized it, instead just assuming that it was a Rampage.

These were quite attractive and unique for the era. Unfortunately, I saw very few on the road. None in any sort of light delivery or commercial capacity. Let alone in a more serious work or towing role. The few I recall in my community, seemed to be driven by retirees. And at least two had bed caps.

If you include the 1981 Ford Fairmont-based Durango, there was this brief, failed attempt by Ford and Chryco to take a piece of the car-based pickup niche market dominated by the Rabbit pickup and El Camino.

I remember when Motor Trend had a sketch of this as a sneak of an upcoming model, and they thought it would be called “Rampager.” Then it actually appeared as the Rampage and I always thought that was a rather clever name. They couldn’t carry much, could they? More a Subaru BRAT (sans jump seats)-light duty and bike vehicle.

This is the only Dodge pickup ever made that actually gets the fuel economy boasted on every new Dodge pickup truck ad.
It’s a wonderful concept and there are lots of similar trucks being built in Europe. Nice low beds make getting stuff in and out much easier.
If speed is your thing, most of the late 80’s Chryco Shelby parts are easily adaptable to the Rampage.
I’ve always figured that NA pickups were built backwards as 4WD is often needed due to low weight over the rear wheels and FWD would get around that. 4WD would then only be needed for heavy loads in rough territory, a rare situation. I know, I know, you need 4WD to pull the boat out of the water……

I owned a 1985 Plymouth Turismo (L-body coupe) from 1989 to 1995, and I remember it being a very good car in the snow.

We recently got rid of a 1999 Jeep Cherokee — my wife and I had owned it since it was new, and it had been my daily driver since February 2007 — and replaced it with a 2014 Ford Escape (base model with FWD, not AWD). Based on my limited experience to date, the Escape is an absolutely atrocious vehicle in the snow. On days when there is any more than a thin coating of snow on the ground, I may as well just leave it parked.

On the one hand, I wonder if the Escape isn’t really that bad, but I was spoiled by the Cherokee, and any small FWD vehicle is bound to be a let-down. On the other hand, I remember both my Turismo and my ’95 Escort (my daily driver before the Cherokee) as pretty good vehicles in the snow, and I can’t believe they were really as bad in the snow as the Escape seems to be.

I was very sad to see the Cherokee go. It needed significant repairs, and it didn’t seem worth sinking the money into (it had been in the shop a lot the past few years, which I accepted as the price of not having a car payment, but it finally needed work that I could no longer rationalize on that basis). My wife’s ’06 Trailblazer is also starting to get up there in years, and we wanted to make sure we had at least one reliable, late-model car in the household moving forward. We thought it would also be nice to have something more fuel-efficient and with the latest safety and convenience features. Keeping the Cherokee as a spare vehicle wasn’t feasible because we didn’t have the money to both get it fixed and buy a new car, and to then pay for registration, insurance and maintenance for three vehicles moving forward. There are many days when I wish we just had the Cherokee fixed and kept it, though…

my folks had a ’87 Turismo, and it was quite good in the snow. My theory: those skinny little 165/80-13 tires made the difference. Ever see the tires on rally cars running a snow stage? Skinny. Wide tires on more modern cars just don’t seem to slice thru the snow like the old ice skates did.

Plus the WORST thing to have in the snow is traction control, which seems to come standard on every vehicle these days. In snow or ice, it only guarantees that you’ll be stuck and stay stuck. Once the wheels start to spin, it retards the engine so you can never just that “just enough” wheel spin to break you loose.

Tom Klockau

Posted February 5, 2014 at 6:15 PM

I am very thankful my V50 is an ’06 model, meaning it still has the traction control off button. ’07s lost that button.

MCT

Posted February 6, 2014 at 10:36 AM

That’s exactly what the main problem with the Escape is — you step on the gas, and absolutely nothing happens. If there is any amount of snowfall on the ground, it struggles to go up inclines of any size, and even sometimes has trouble starting from a stop on a relatively flat surface. Anytime it snows, I worry that I’m going to get stuck somewhere and be unable to move in any direction — not necessarily because the snow is deep enough to physically block me, but because the traction control prevents the front wheels from turning to even try to get through.

We live on a dead-end street that goes down a small hill just in front of our house; we are about halfway down the hill. The end of our driveway also goes down a slight incline to join the street. Coming out of the driveway, I have repeatedly had trouble climbing the crest of the hill on the street when it is snowcovered, and I have completely given up with trying to back into the driveway on untreated snow — though doing so then forces me to back out when I leave, preventing me from gaining any momementum to head up the hill, so I better hope that the street is less slippery by the time I leave. In either case, failure to make progress leaves me stuck on the hill, with my only course of action to try to straighten the car out (which can be a protracted process in and of itself), back it down to the bottom of the hill, continue backing up far enough away from the bottom of the hill to build up some momentum, then give it the gas and hope I can make it all the way up. Sometimes this takes multiple tries.

My wife’s ’06 Trailblazer has traction control, and in 2WD it sometimes has trouble in the same spots, but it rarely if ever exhibits this “you step on the gas and absolutely nothing happens” behavior. I guess it’s because the Escape is lighter?

Awesome. I’ve always felt that if ever a manufacturer were to produce a new compact truck, like, _really_ compact, even smaller than a Ranger, this is what they would have to imitate. A FWD (optional AWD) unibody platform would be necessary to achieve the mandated MPG.

L.W.–see my post down below. The Plymouths and Dodges shared the same style, only the grille inserts were different if I remember right. The Scamp didn’t make it to 84 like the Dodges though, and the Dodge got the Charger 2.2 front clip which was the updated piece. Strangely, this ‘square frogeye’ setup is what made it to the Shelby Chargers but again, different grille insert. Yes, I have an unhealthy turbo mopar fetish!

We used one of these as a parts delivery vehicle at my father’s Dodge store for about five years in the 1980s. It had a hard life–being rode hard and put away wet by every parts and service employee on a daily basis–nevertheless it was surprisingly reliable and economical to operate (especially compared with the Dakota that replaced it). I’m sure we must have retailed a few Rampages as well, but only our little dirt brown parts truck sticks in my memory.

I like these things! This one looks like its undergoing a restoration, from the earlier Omni-style front clip. This has 5 lug hubs which suggests a later model but those would’ve had the current Charger’s side-by-side quad sealed beams and more nose heavy looking front clip. I hope it gets a turbo drivetrain. A neon SRT-4 engine/transaxle can be swapped in!

Dodge had the Ram 50 which was just a lightly rebadged Mitsubishi Mighty Max. Neither were very popular but it was a more traditional entry.

These weren’t direct challengers to the other pickups…they were something different, much like the El Camino/Ranchero and the Subaru Brat….and later on the Subaru Baja and Honda Ridgeline. The question is, why aren’t more manufacturers doing their own thing instead of playing follow the leader? Personally, I think theres no point in 5 or 6 makes that all have essentially the same exact offering.

I’m amazed that the brain trust that is the Curbside Classic commentariat is unaware of the small pickups that are available in South America… The successors to the Rampage and the VW Pickup are available down there. I wish that one of them would bring them to North America…